Phillies to Sign Zambrano

The Phillies have agreed to terms with RHP Carlos Zambrano. The deal was first reported by Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal and is a minor league contract. Speculation heated up yesterday that Zambrano may have been signed by the Phillies because he had come to terms with the independent Long Island Ducks but had not yet been added to their roster.

Zambrano was 7-10 with a 4.49 ERA in 35 appearances (20 starts) for the Miami Marlins last season.

Analysis: Zambrano, 31, has three top-5 Cy Young award finishes but none since 2007 and has had rapidly decreasing K/9 IP rates and rapidly increasing BB/9 IP rates as detailed in our piece The Phils and Zambrano? Ugh.

I am more than willing to admit my mistakes, and am currently willingly eating my words regarding Michael Young, however, Zambrano is not a good fit right now for the Phillies and isn’t worth a minor league flyer. No word on if he’ll be reporting to Reading or Lehigh Valley, but it is likely he will be an IronPig to start his Phillies organizational tenure.

17 Comments

It is a minor league contract. If he looks like he has fixed what has sucked the last 6 years, then why not throw him in the mix.. If he is nothing special, we will drop him. We aren’t stupid. On a bright note, he can hit so maybe a pinch hitter?

of course it’s worth a minor league flyer…if he doesn’t have good stuff then it won’t have any effect on the phils. If they had added him to the major league team right away then I’d agree it’s a mistake. Everybody thought Pedro Martinez was washed up when he pitched for us and he did a good job

This is a good signing, as we have taken a few from the AAA staff with Pettibone called up and Cloyd likely coming back up in a week or so for at least a spot start.

Scott is right, he can pinch hit for Ben Revere when the team needs the ball to go out of the IF.

Martin and Morgan in AAA are not ready yet, but Zambrano is behind Cloyd & Pettibone. Lannan will be back soon. We should not see Zambrano any time soon and this will allow the team to put the relievers throwing games as starters in AAA back into the pen.

He might be okay as depth due to recent callups, and he night even have something left (although 6 years of poor pitching should indicate that he has nothing). But his attitude could be a real problem. He’s battled with major leaguers, so I can imagine him trying to ruin the confidence of some of the prospects.

Martinez was worth a gamble, but Z is no Martinez, and in fact, has never even been close to that level.

People keep wanting to excuse these signings. The Delmon Young deal’s cheap, it’s not a risk. The risk is the organization is so incompetent, so catastrophically bad at evaluating performance, that they go and embarrass themselves and the fans by using Delmon Young as an everyday right-fielder and five-hole hitter. Zambrano won’t have to pitch well to get fast-tracked to the majors; he will simply have to prove that he’s (mostly) healthy. And then he’ll keep getting chances because he’s “proven” and because the oldest team in the NL needs to add “veteran leadership.”

I agree with you when it comes to Major League contracts. When they signed Durbin, many of the RAJ apologists responded with comments like “you can’t have enough pitching.” When they signed Delmon, RAJ’s minions said they’ll cut him loose if he’s not good and it won’t cost too much. What they fail to see is that, in addition to the dollars they are wasting in Durbin and Delmon, there’s also the opportunity cost of not using someone else in those situations. However, in this case and at this point in time, it’s only a minor league deal, so I can’t get too worked up over it. If, in an extremely unlikely scenario, he finds his old magic, maybe he can help. If not, he’ll most likely never wear red pinstripes.

Didn’t mean to say Z had the same success that Pedro had, was just comparing the situation. But the first time he ever had an era over 4 was 2011 (not including his first year when he pitched 7 innings) so I’m not sure what somebody was thinking saying he’s had 6 years of poor pitching.

Maybe I should have said barely average. One can’t go strictly by ERA, anyway. Even if that’s the only measure, his ERAs have been close to 4.00 a number of times. His walk rate has always been a problem. His innings pitched have slipped. Zambrano’s other peripheral stats haven’t been all that good since 2007. This is 2013, which is the sixth year, although maybe a year in which he’s been so worthless no team has chosen to give him an ML contract shouldn’t be included.

I was only ponting out that the Martinez signing shouldn’t be compared to this one. The situation is way different because the pitchers are way different. Martinez had always been a great pitcher, even in his injury filled later years, and was a good one to take a chance with. Zambrano had a few good years, but has mostly been mediocre since. Martinez never battled teamates or got suspended; Z has. Pedro won Cy Youngs; Z has only gotten some votes.

Can we just use the word “Zambrano” as a synonym for “desperate” for the remainder of the season? Wheels can set it up with, “welp, bases loaded and no outs for Cole as the Phils trail Atlanta by three runs here in the 7th,” and then Tom would jump in with “Yeah, things are looking pretty zambrano.”